A problem I think I’ve encountered with ASPD and the public perception is that people have very fixed ideas in their heads about what a psychopath should or shouldn’t look like. Is he the slimy politician having affairs with his interns and screwing over minorities without so much as a wince? Is she the career bitch who seems to enjoy having many underpaid staff devoted to her every sadistic whim just a little bit too much? Is he the unbearably handsome compulsive liar your best mate used to fuck? You know, that guy in the suit for no reason?
And I mean, yeah. Maybe. But it’s not all as broad as that. American Psychologist Theodore Millon, in his life, did extensive work on personality disorders, specifically to do with dividing individuals diagnosed with such disorders into subtypes and fuck me if I don’t just love a good set of categories.
Technically he divided psychopathy into two separate personality disorders, one being Sadistic Personality Disorder (psychopathy) which was distinct from Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopathy). Some say there’s a difference and some don’t - I tend to think if I fell at that far end, or even if psychopath/sociopath was/were synonymous with ASPD as some people claim, I’d be the sociopath. However, when Millon proposed that this be recognised as a PD, his proposal was rejected. Sadism is part of the dark tetrad to which most of us ASPD friends can relate here and there (a friend once called me “unnecessarily sadistic” but really, it’s a fleeting kind of trait at best), but is not its own disorder. With that said, here’s the subtypes of ASPD, as proposed by Millon:
Nomadic (including schizoid and avoidant features)
Think Charles Manson. Crazy bastard has spent his entire life in and out of institutions, living on the margins of society, here we have antisociality that works due to slipping between the cracks on a constant level, hard to pin down, hard to understand. Nomadic psychopaths don’t give a fuck about the Armani suit or the Rolex. They wanna grow a beard and smoke discarded cigarette butts and sure, maybe sometimes they’ll start a cult and send for the murders of high-profile celebrities, get a swastika tattooed to their forehead, just basic shit like that.
Malevolent (including sadistic and paranoid features)
This is where you start to see psychopaths really behave like psychopaths. They’re belligerent, sadistic, quarrelsome, they anticipate betrayal so preemptively explode it in as loud and visually striking way they can. Where some antisocial people are the most charming and sociable creatures you’ve ever met (and so you don’t know you’ve met them), malevolent psychopaths are antisocial and asocial all at once. They don’t like you, or your friends, or your family, or your fucking dead pet dog or cat or whatever it is you keep bleating on about. Malevolent types of antisocial people want to set fire not just to your home, but to your whole street just in case you were friendly with your neighbours.
Covetous (including primarily negativistic features)
Incessant and directionless yearning for what they don’t have, envy, jealousy, bitterness, ruled by greed and a desire for oneupmanship, seeks pleasure in taking without giving back, and enjoys taking more than having.
Now we’re getting into Patrick Bateman territory. This kind of psychopath IS the psychopath you’ve been imagining. If he’s managed to be rich in some way, then he’s got a beautifully stylish and sickeningly expensive apartment that he fucking hates because someone else got a slightly more expensive one. If he’s not managed to become rich then he’s the used car salesman who spends his lunch break steadily poisoning his colleague Dan’s instant coffee because Dan got a better company car and that’s just fucking bullshit. Dan’s got to go.
Risk-taking (including histrionic features)
Dauntless, venturesome, adrenaline junkie, heedless, fearless. This is the psychopath I’ve heard least about. She’s jumping out of planes for charity and keeping the money herself, she’s ruthless and seems to get her satisfaction not so much from slowly and insidiously working on a victim over the course of months or even years, she’s much more likely to act on a whim and take the big risk that might not pay off. She’s going to be into gambling and might be in a lot of debt but whatever, it doesn’t matter. She can always fake her own death and fuck off to St Lucia with her mysteriously disappeared ex-husband’s life-savings.
Reputation-defending (including narcissistic features)
This is the WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME psychopath, the psychopath that nobody ever wants to admit to being, but hey, someone’s got to be it, and it might as well be you. This is the psychopath who is going to get caught, the clumsy psychopath. The psychopath who thinks they’re infallible but hasn’t got anything to back it up with, because they didn’t see why they should have to try or do any legwork - people should just fear them even though they’re not frightening. This I feel is the most vulnerable psychopath at all, the one simultaneously the closest to an empath and the farthest away one can possibly get, because they have human distress that comes – not from the covetousness or enviousness from before – but a self-imposed greatness that is so fragile and precarious that anything at any second can threaten it to fall. And you don’t want to be there when it does. This psychopath is terrified of being thought of in any way that undermines their inherent greatness. Tell that psychopath they’re a fucking no-hoper with no friends, and they will likely brush you off and assume your rage comes from a greater envy at their formidable and indomitable power and strength. But tell that psychopath you preferred their hair before it got cut? Looks like it’s you who’s getting cut now. Interestingly enough, this is the subtype of psychopath who is least likely to know that their behaviour is psychopathic. After all. It’s not their fault. It’s yours.
So now we’ve all had fun working out which we are, take a minute to work out which one you are. Of course the examples I gave were hyped up to illustrate the point - a malevolent psychopath might just stand in line at a shop having a rapid slideshow of violent imagery of the death of the man in front of them in the queue, because the man at the shop is taking too long and eating into their time, thinking, “the selfish cunt, why should HE get to take up all that space? What makes HIM all of a sudden need all that time? Fucking state of him, you know, this is exactly what is wrong with ABSOLUTELY FUCKING EVERYTHING god I’m going to burn this place to the fucking ground, none of the families of anyone in this hell hole would ever miss them, if anything they’d be WELL RID OF THESE USELESS PIECES OF ACTUAL HUMAN SHI– oh, hi yes can I have a pack of Marlboro Reds, please? Lovely day, isn’t it?” and the time it takes to exchange warm pleasantries with the idiot checkout girl, walk home, and have a cigarette, just so happens to be the exact same amount of time it took to cool off, calm down, and pretend like nothing ever happened.